Frustration, questions

Another professor emailed me privately to offer going over an exam with me that I did poorly on. I appreciate the individual attention, I do, but it also elicits a lump of frustration in my throat. I hate that my professors know me as A Repeater, or One of The Bottom Five Students, instead of bright and lively, hardworking, enterprising Alyssum. I hate feeling like I have to explain myself over and over and over each time I do poorly on an exam. On one hand I want to assure them that I understand the material and that it's just multiple choice exams I have trouble with, but to these people who have never done poorly on an exam themselves, that just doesn't compute. On the other hand, I want to smack them for assuming that I'm confused with the material. Or, I want to smack myself for having trouble with this sort of examination--it sucks when that's the only method of evaluation they use! How'd I get so far without having this trouble before?!?!

Sometimes (every day) I envy people who are doing what they love and didn't have to 'play the game' to get there. No jumping through hoops to start your own fashion industry or creating art for the sake of art. Mostly, I envy the very intelligent people who are opera singers or writers or dancers or musicians who don't feel bad about not having continued school or doing what is "right" (I've been inculcated with the idea that the only logical thing to do is to take a job in the sciences and do all your creative stuff on the side). I have this overwhelming sense of responsibility to take advantage of the opportunity I have been granted by being accepted to vet school--but I HATE being here. It's gotten tolerable, and I even have good friends and enjoyable moments. But if I had known what vet school would entail (the heartbreak, the constant feeling of failure, the extreme dedication, the loss of almost all personal time) I wouldn't have applied. I always lived my life before based on the "live your life on a day to day basis like it's the last". So why am I here where I live my life on a "counting down the years/months/weeks/days til I have a life again"? It's so antithetical to who I am. Why is the "never quit" part of my personality stronger than the "do what you love" part?